Darwin Correspondence Project

Russian botanist. Daughter of Aleksandr Osipovich Armfeld, a professor of legal medicine and health at Moscow University. Educated at home and at the Nikolaevski Institute, Moscow, 1857–64. Her collections of shells, insects, eggs, etc., were later incorporated into the Moscow University Zoological Museum. Founding member of the Society of Enthusiasts of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography, 1864. Married the geologist Aleksei Pavlovich Fedchenko in 1867; with him took part in Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufman’s expedition to explore newly conquered Russian Turkestan, 1868–72. Collected over 1500 plant specimens and acted as artist and cartographer for the expedition. Took part in a botanical expedition to the Urals, 1891–2; from 1897, devoted herself to the study of the flora of Turkestan and made a further expedition there in 1901.